Recollections of Pain
by AlfheimWanderer
Summary: After years of failure in magic, Louise de La Vallière has at last succeeded in summoning a familiar. But with tradition holding that the familiar reflects the summoner's talent, what does it mean that hers not only wields no magic, but is utterly blind?
1. Distorted Expectations

**Recollections of Pain**

A Familiar of Zero/Kara no Kyoukai Story

Disclaimer: In this particular universe, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to elements of the Zero no Tsukaima franchise, Kara no Kyoukai, the Nasuverse as a whole, or any other modern works that I may reference in this story.

In a world where magic is the proof of nobility, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is an outcast, bearing the stigma of failure, as she has never been able to use the simplest of spells. Scorned by society as "the Zero," a woeful all-but-commoner with pretensions to the high nobility, the Springtime Summoning Rite is her last chance to prove otherwise. To everyone's surprise, she summons something - but when millennia long traditions hold that the summoned being reflects the caster's ability as a mage, what does it mean that her familiar is blind?

* * *

Standing before the summoning circle she had painstakingly etched into the ground, as many before her had done that day, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière trembled, but unlike the others, it was not in anticipation or excitement at what was about to happen. For her peers at the Tristain Academy of Magic, the foremost institution of magical learning in Tristain, the Springtime Familiar Summoning was simply a formality, confirming to those around them that yes, they were mages, masters of the elements, nobles in fact, not just in name.

_Their _concerns revolved around what they would manage to summon, when their magic reached through the world and called to them the familiar most suited to them.

Many, of course, wished fervently for a dragon, griffin, manticore, or some other creature of legend to bind as a servitor, an external validation of internal self-image that would cementing their places in the social pecking order, but it was rare for anyone to summon such things. For as prior summonings had demonstrated, only the most powerful (which very few could be said to be) mages called forth such magical beasts, with the rest forced to content themselves with more mundane creatures like dogs, cats, or frogs, with even something like a giant mole being unusual enough to warrant a second look.

Still, no matter what disappointments they suffered, they were secure in the knowledge that they had summoned _something_, and so would be recognized as proper mages, their station in society reaffirmed by this success.

Louise had no such certainty, as in sixteen years of life she had never managed to cast even the simplest of spells correctly, with her attempts either doing nothing at all (when she was fortunate) or producing spectacular explosions with varying amounts of force depending on the complexity of the spell and the elements involved.

To her credit, the strawberry blonde was the best at magical _theory _among the students at the Academy, having pushed herself towards an understanding of the concepts underlying the spells in an attempt to find out what was wrong with her, but she had found that this academic knowledge didn't matter. She had worked tirelessly, hoping to achieve a breakthrough, trying the different elements, different spells, different techniques, trying to discern exactly what might be handicapping her abilities, but nothing had worked.

No matter what she tried in an effort at self-improvement, the outcome was the same: a series of explosions that seemed to rip through her soul as much as the world around her, crushing her self-esteem, shattering her self-image, blasting apart any lingering vestiges of hope she might dare to harbor.

Indeed, had she been anyone else, the talentless girl would have already been dismissed from the Academy years ago, sent home in disgrace, where she would either be disowned or married off at her young age - and she knew it. The only reason she had been allowed to remain this long was because of her pedigree, as Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière was the third daughter of the powerful Duke de la Vallière, the highest ranking noble of Tristain, and it did not do to anger potential patrons.

In other words, she was a failure who could not stand on her own merits, and everyone around her knew it-just as they knew that this "formality" was her very last chance at proving otherwise, with most jeering or placing bets on how spectacularly she would fail, for everyone except the most open-minded teachers were resigned to the fact that she would fail by now.

Even Louise herself, as she shook with tightly coiled fear and trepidation, the manifold consequences of failure marching through her mind as she thought of all the possible ways her spell could go wrong _this_ time.

...though on the bright side, if it all ended in an explosion, maybe the blast would just erase her from existence so she wouldn't have to bear the shame and dishonor of being proven no more than a commoner with pretensions above her stations.

"Proceed, Miss Vallière."

Three words, spoken in a calm, supportive voice, yet to her they were as ominous as the thud of an invisible executioner's axe.

Still, there was no avoiding it now. She had prepared for this as best she could, practiced the wand motions, memorized the ritual chant, double, triple, quadruple-checked the summoning circle to make sure no errors had crept in.

Without regret or hesitation, she cast the spell...and the world exploded.

* * *

Things were rather more peaceful a world away, where two young women were having tea at the rustic Café Ahnenerbe, enjoying a welcome escape from the oppressive atmosphere of Reien Girls' Academy and the rumors that had trailed after both of them for the majority of the year, building up instead of diminishing as time passed. Such was only inevitable when one left a strictly guarded campus for prolonged periods of time (without permission or explanation), with these disappearances coinciding with the mysterious collapse of a bridge one's family had been building for the city, a serial murder incident that remained unsolved to this day, the death of two teachers, and the destruction of a classroom, resulting in a student being burned to death.

The fact that the two who were named in the whispers were the highest-ranked students in the school, in addition to being generally helpful and kind (not to mention two very attractive young women who spent an inordinate amount of time together), only added fuel to the fire. People loved to cast aspersions on those thought of as too perfect, after all, and so the thought of these two "saints" engaging in forbidden activities together, being partners in more than simply crime, was...tantalizing.

Of course, being the good students they were, neither paid much heed to these frivolous pieces of gossip, knowing that confirming or denying anything would only make things worse-something of special given the unusual perspicacity of these rumors.

For Fujino Asagami had been more than simply involved in both the destruction of Broad Bridge and the serial murder incident, and Azaka Kokutou had played her part in the death of Satsuki Kurogiri and the destruction of the Academy's chapel.

Neither was innocent of the crimes they were said to have committed, though the only ones who knew the truth were they themselves, fallen angels with bloody hands. Indeed, neither had much innocence left at all, given the horrors they had seen, experienced, inflicted-or those they had met, as both knew the bearer of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception uncomfortably well.

With ominous black hair, ominous white skin, and ominous, bottomless, empty eyes that could see the end of things, that beautiful grim reaper reminded them uncomfortably of what they themselves were: murderesses who knew blood and pain more intimately than most humans knew themselves, who were as capable of ending lives as others ended sentences-and had done so for a variety of motives, including survival, revenge...or pleasure.

That was their wont, as mysterious beauties of the moonlit world, whose true talents were known only to others with business in the shadows of society, eerily alike to those who did not know them. And as those of a world apart, they occasionally needed time away from those of normal society, interludes where each could simply spend time in the company of the only one who truly understood them: the other

Ahnenerbe was their preferred haunt for such things, an antique cafe untouched by the sensibilities of the vogue, with ostentatious signage, plate glass windows, or a colorful menu of specials announcing its presence to the world. Save for the fact that its two storied timber-framed building with a base of brick was reminiscent of a shop in one of those rustic "European" villages one might find dotted and there, nothing about its exterior stood out.

Thus, it wasn't frequented by many, serving instead as a haven from reality to those who knew of it and sought a moment's respite in the aged establishment. For that it was well designed, given the comforting dimness inside, with only the tables near the door illuminated by the four-square windows cut into the walls, the starkness of the contrast drawing a sharp divide between the worlds of sun and moon.

At the very back, two girls in western-style dresses were seated across from one another, with the fiery Azaka speaking to Fujino in the very last of several outings-cum-mutual therapy sessions that they had shared through the many years they had known each other, both before and after each learned of what the other was capable of.

One impulsive, one thoughtful; one fiery, one calm; but both striking in their own way, they were as yin and yang, and together, found some measure of contentment that they could not when apart. They were old companions, after all, people who had been isolated from those they knew by choice or by circumstance and had discovered an "alike" in one another, despite their many differences.

Indeed, they were close enough that most picked out more than a trace of mutual admiration between them, whether it existed or not. Simply put, in some ways, they were all the other had after everything they had lost...but now, even that was coming to an end.

"I'm leaving, Fujino..." the apprentice fire mage was saying even now, shaking her head, her voice tinged with regret. "By the time the school year starts, I'll be gone from Mifune."

"I already know, Azaka," her companion replied, eyes closed as she allowed senses other than sight to take in every bit of this last bit of time they would share. "You want to go after Aozaki-san so she can teach you more as her apprentice, right?" A wan smile at a wincing girl. "You've been feeling guilty about it for a while."

"I'm sorry..." Azaka whispered, looking away, though it wouldn't do any good. It wasn't as if Fujino could see how much she regretted things from her posture, nor would it be polite to ask, as the other girl had lost her sight eight months ago, during a dark and stormy night in which two killers met and the world _distorted_. "I wish things were different, but-"

"You've done enough, Azaka," Fujino murmured gently. It was without the bitterness others might expect at the end of things, a simple reply at the close of a not so simple relationship, but their interactions had always been odd, compared to most people. And in truth, Azaka had done much for Fujino, helping the gravely injured psychic through her intensive physical therapy regimen after a long hospitalization and helping her learn to get around without the benefit of sight. "You've done enough."

For over a decade, since her father had begun thinking of her as a monster for her abilities, forcing a horrific regimen of drugs upon her to seal away her senses and block her powers, Fujino had felt like a ghost, a specter wandering the world as something that didn't quite belong. She was the perpetual observer, watching what other people did, how they expressed themselves, how they responded to stimuli - and had learned from them how to act, how to fake her reactions so that people would think of her as one of them. Before the events of eight months ago, she could not feel what she touched, had no sense of reality, as if her true self was simply sitting behind her eyes and watching a movie play out _in perpetua_.

When she walked, she only moved her body, not feeling the ground at all, having to confirm that her feet had moved by looking at her feet. When she was praised, she did not truly know pleasure - when she hurt herself, she did not know to cry, as if nothing had really happened to her, as if she did not exist. For her, everyday life was more an exercise of the mind than the body, something dreamed rather than something experienced, and so she was uncertain about reality.

No one truly wanted her around either, not her father, who thought of her as a demon or a monster; her mother who had sent her away to boarding school; her peers, who seemed disconcerted by her now more so than ever; or others in the world, who sought only to break her, to glean some kind of reaction from her emotionless facade.

It had only been when she discovered what pain felt like, when she had torn apart her tormentors, that she truly felt alive. A hateful sensation, but at last an anchor to the reality of this ludicrous world - one that had not completely disappeared after she fought a demon hunter...and lost. She had lost her sight in that battle where the old Fujino had died, having lost the ability to perceive the world around her. Yet the sense of touch remained, and so Fujino was thrust into a strange new world without light, an alien environment that she was learning about through hearing, touch and smell, with the strange sensations difficult to adapt to when she had spent a lifetime without them.

It was like relearning how to move, how to think, how to act-how to live all over again, and every step of the way, Azaka had been there. Patiently helping her, serving as a familiar anchor to reality so she was not overwhelmed, holding her hand as she rediscovered what it meant to be alive.

And now, like everyone else, the fire mage was going to leave her behind.

"At least you seem to be doing better now, Fujino," the pushy Azaka rambled, her bright and beautiful voice one of the few constants in the psychic's world. "You can get around without help now, moving around Mifune on your own, and..." She paused for a moment, glancing at her friend with a faint expression of warmth. "...you're smiling again."

"So I am," Fujino allowed, bringing a delicate teacup to her lips to hide the affection they betrayed. "Mostly thanks to you."

"Mm. I'm glad," the other girl murmured, though the corners of her lips curved with interest as she considered the psychic's more voluptuous form. "Though while I'm here, I have to ask..."

A moment's hesitation, as she considered how to best pose the question.

"...yes?" the blind one answered, the barest hint of a smirk gracing her normally solemn visage.

"...do you have something against bridges?"

"Mou...why would you think such a thing?" she countered, her expression a classically innocent mask that would only fool those who had not seen her more malevolent side. "Have I seemed unhappy about them?"

"Well, no..." Azaka allowed slowly, though she didn't lose her focus. "But a month ago another bridge was ah..._twisted beyond repair, so..."_

"Do you have something against chapels, Azaka?" came the pointed response, as the mask faded. "The chapel at the Academy was destroyed by an explosion, after all...during the winter break."

The fire mage grimaced, her cheeks coloring at the reminder of how she had fought against the brainwashed upperclassman Misaya Ouji and her fairy familiars in that very chapel, and how the fight had gotten out of hand when the fairies had slipped Ouji's control, forming a construct that threatened to destroy both of them outright.

"I-I had no choice in the matter," she replied, flustered. "I needed to stop Ouji from being killed...and keep her from burning Kaori's classmates alive as vengeance for their crimes."

A moment of silence passed between the two as they remembered Kaori Tachibana, a first year student who had been repeatedly raped and impregnated by Hayama Hideo, her homeroom teacher, because she would not agree to participate in _Enjo Kosai_, holding out due to her Christian convictions. In her shame, she immolated herself, leading to Misaya Ouji killing Hideo in an act of revenge, with the older girl fully prepared to burn the members of Kaori's class alive in retaliation for them pushing Kaori to kill herself.

Such a thing reminded Fujino all too well of what happened to herself, and the orgy of violence she had indulged in after awakening at last to pain. In some ways, she regretted not being able to complete her revenge, as the ringleader had escaped; in others, she regretted lashing out, leaving blood on her hands - but it was too late to pretend it had never happened.

The most she could do was keep others from burdening themselves with the same.

"I had no choice either," Fujino answered in kind, a wan expression flashing across delicate features. "If I had not acted, Miyazuki would have followed Yuuko Andou in taking her life."

Yuuko Andou being one of the eight girls who had taken her life by jumping from the Fujou building, leaping from the precipice to kill her own future, as the Andou family had collapsed from the strain of enormous debts-the girl named Miyazuki had been her best friend, who had agreed to commit suicide together with her to escape a future filled with nothing but filth.

But Miyazuki had not gone through with the suicide pact, leaving Yuuko to die alone. Overwhelmed by remorse, guilt and despair, she had gone to a lonely bridge at night, intending to slit her wrists and plunge into the cold waters of the bay below.

...she had not intended to meet a killer with demonic eyes, a terrible avatar of death who had so terrified her that she realized she did not truly want to die.

"Fujino...you..."

"She doesn't need to end up broken...like me," the murderess whispered sadly, sighing as she bowed her head.

"Fujino, you aren't..." Azaka began, but the fire mage just bit her lip, unable to continue. Instead, she simply placed a comforting hand on the other's wrist, since sometimes the touch of another could be far more reassuring than any words.

"Eight months, I was killed by...that Ryougi. But at the same time, I was saved. Something was lost, something was found, but it doesn't change the fact that I am broken. I always have been, though not as much now because of you."

"I'm broken too, you know..." the fire mage answered, smiling softly. "I like...special things, after all."

"I know."

It was a familiar dialogue between the two, a variation on a theme they had participated in many times in the last few months. They were much alike, after all, two raven-haired beauties whose features could entrance most passerbys, with inner natures and truths similar enough that they understood each other intimately. True, their auras were quite different, with one being more of the Magician to the other's High Priestess, if one were to use a tarot deck as a comparison, but at the same, like those two cards, they complemented each other perfectly.

They settled into a companionable silence for a time, just enjoying each other's company, but in the end, such a thing could not last. Already, the sun hung low in the sky, and it was time to say their goodbyes.

"Fujino, I..." Azaka murmured, searching for words as she began to pull away, but her companion beat her to the punch.

"I say," the psychic said, taking hold of the fire mage's fingers before they could move too far away, repeating words that had been said to her some time ago. Words that had been a gift from one now passed, to one who yet lived. "I want you to believe that this world is beautiful, no matter how cruel it is..."

Red eyes, the color of fresh-spilled blood, looked in the direction where Fujino knew her friend to be, though what they saw or did not, only she knew.

"...I'll remember, Fujino. Thank you...and goodbye."

With that, she slipped free of the other's hold, and with a last unseen smile, departed for an uncertain future, with the Asagami heiress listening to the sound of footsteps fading at last to nothing.

"Goodbye, Azaka," Fujino murmured with a note of finality, wishing the apprentice mage well. Somehow though, she had a feeling that she would not see her friend ever again.

Sometime later, the psychic stood, using her white cane to assist her, feeling the last lingering traces of the fading sun on her pale skin. Aside from the owner of the cafe, a grizzled old man dressed in silver and black, there was no one else left, as all others had already gone.

"Do you know where you're going?" an odd voice asked, one she didn't quite recognize.

"I will...eventually," was all she said by way of reply as she headed towards one of the cafe's dual exits, her cane _tap-tap-tapping_ the way before her to ensure it was clear of obstacles.

"Then may you find what you are looking for."

These words drifted out to her as she passed through the open door, and out into the street, just as she stepped onto an oval of green light, and disappeared into a timeless void.

* * *

_KABOOM!_

It was a blast like nothing Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière had ever before experienced, with an indescribable sense of light and heat sweeping everything away, leaving nothing behind but a featureless plain of white, hanging in the air for a moment in time.

_'I see. So I've finally killed myself,' _thoughtsome small part of Louise's mind, seeing how her spell had apparently failed once again. _'I guess I wasn't good enough...'_

...but such self-defeatist thoughts were banished by a mighty shockwave that sent her reeling like a leaf in a hurricane, going literally head over heels to do a faceplant in the sod. She lay there for several long seconds, feeling every bit of her body seeming to cry out in muddy humiliation, but forced herself to her feet despite how much she wanted to just crawl into the ground and die.

She was a Vallière, after all, and would not, could not, admit to failure.

Thus, as the afternoon sun blew away the dust and smoke of the earlier explosion, the strawberry blonde turned towards where the summoning circle had been to see if anything at all had appeared.

And indeed, something had.

The parting of the veil revealed an unconscious woman with refined, exotic features, long raven hair flowing down to the small of her back, and a figure was the envy of any at the Academy, but such things were not what Louise noticed first. What she-_and everyone else_-took note of was what the figure was wearing: the black and white habit of a nun, with what looked like a short white staff draped across her stomach.

In the background, Professor Colbert narrowed his eyes, muttering the incantation of a spell of detection under his breath to check for magical potential, wanting to see if Louise had somehow summoned a fellow noble. He frowned as he finished, not finding anything out of the ordinary, yet that in itself was something odd.

Louise's classmates were less charitable, when they recovered the urge to speak.

"Louise...you..." someone asked in a horrified gasp, whispers beginning to fly as the onlookers took in the sight of what Louise had summoned. "...what have you done?"

"A member of the church...with a pure white rod of office?" another asked. "That means...a prioress? Or a high ranking priestess?"

They had expected her to fail and summon nothing at all, or maybe to call an ant or butterfly by fluke or chance, not to have her spell bring forth a representative of the Church, whose teachings had shaped society for the last six thousand years.

Was it a sign of something?

All the same, they knew that Louise was simply the "Zero", a failed mage with a zero-percent success rate at using magic at all, so if they were bothered, they didn't let it bother them for long.

"Heh...are you really going to try and bind such a person as your familiar, you _Zero_?"a particularly vicious voice jeered from the crowd, one that the strawberry blonde thought she recognized as the water mage Montmorency, who having summoned a lowly frog, had no room to be casting aspersions on her ability. "You know that those who serve God cannot be bound to two masters, and that God will surely strike you down if you try."

"Yeah, give up you failure, just as God intended," another voice rang out, enjoying how Louise flinched at those words. "You've never succeeded before - what makes you think you stand a chance now. Like for the rest of us, the outcome was already determined. God is just sending you a message by letting you summon someone you can't bind, trapping you from trying again - you have no more tries. You are nothing but a Zero."

"You...you...you..." Louise began to chant, a red flush of anger washing over her features as she muttered the word, rocking back and forth on the heels of her feet.

"So go join the church," the heckler continued. "Like all the other crippled children who can't use magic and can't find anyone to marry them, just as you won't, you flat-chested shrew. In the end all you can do it-"

Something snapped at that moment in Louise's mind.

She had summoned something, and now these, these others still dared to make light of her? Would they never be satisfied with anything she did? Well, she'd show them...she'd show them all!

"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc _de La Vallière_," she chanted icily, trembling in place as she waved her wand as if slashing with a knife, daring anyone to challenge her claim or title. "Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers; bless this...humble being, and make her my familiar."

Before anyone could stop her, the third daughter of the _Vallière _family knelt beside the raven-haired girl and leaned down, capturing the other girl's lips with hers.

"It is done," Louise intoned, turning to glare at all those who had said she couldn't do it, or would be struck down. She was still alive, wasn't she, even after presuming as she did?

"It seems you have succeeded with 'Contract Servant' in only one try," Professor Colbert said, though the bald middle-aged man was notably subdued compared to his usual demeanor. "Well done, Miss Vallière_."_

_Hiss!_

Light erupted on pale skin, and the scent of burning human flesh filled the nostrils for a second as glowing green runes were etched into the back of the "priestess'" left hand. Yet she made no sound, no movement at all, until the branding was completed.

And in the horror-struck silence, crimson eyes opened onto a strange new world.

* * *

_What...happened?_

Fuijno Asagami remembered stepping through the door of Café Ahnenerbe out into the street, but there her memory failed, as she remembered a sensation of great speed and plunging into darkness, but nothing more.

But now where was she?

She was outside from what she could tell, senses other than sight informing her dutifully of the feel of the warm sun upon her skin and the presence of a large number of people, but at the same time, it wasn't Mifune, as the rustle of wind through trees, the feel of soft grass under her back and even the smell of the air betrayed the differences.

Those others seemed to be watching her warily, as if seeing what she would do, speaking with unfamiliar voices and even more unfamiliar topics of conversation, which she normally only heard from Azaka.

Familiars. Summonings. Runes. Spells.

A quickly fading pain in her left hand.

_How odd._

Yet the intent of those around her merely felt curious, if somewhat disturbed, and she did not detect any feelings of hostility directed at her, so she felt for her white cane and used it to rise to her feet, straightening to her full height, miming the action of looking about in a rather well-mannered fashion.

An odd murmur, as a hush overtook the crowd, all eyes upon her.

"Where am I?" she asked in the general direction of the mass of people, her face impassive as she rested both palms on the pommel of her cane.

"You are at the Tristain Academy of Magic, the most prestigious institution of its kind in Halkeginia," a masculine voice answered from behind her, prompting Fujino to activate her clairvoyance for a moment to get a feel for her surroundings - but only for a moment, as she did not wish to call attention to her Mystic Eyes of Distortion. "Where are you from? And under whose authority do you fall, Sister...?"

The crowd (all European in features) was apparently dressed in some kind of uniform with white shirt, pleated black trousers or skirt with stockings, and black cloaks, all of which carried a wand. More interestingly, each was seemingly paired with a different creature – housecats, dogs, ravens...oh, and a dragon seemingly out of a storybook.

How odd - just as she had recovered some sense of who she was, truly stepping into her body instead of experiencing events in a way like reading a book, she was tossed into a realm of fantasy. And yet she could understand them, and they her - some sort of magic was no doubt afoot.

"Fuijno. Asagami Fujino," the psychic replied simply, turning slowly to the one who had spoken. "I am a charge of Mother Superior Riesbyfe Stridberg of the Vastel Bow-Buckler Knights."

"Vastel Bow Buckler...then are you one of the Church's battle-nuns?" another voice chimed in, from a speaker much younger than the man, a girl whose presence reminded her of a much younger Misaya Ouji, down to the imperious nature and sense of hidden despair. "Fighting in great battles against elves and other heretics?"

"I have come face to face with death and lived, yes," Fujino answered, while the other girl's eyes apparently widened, drawing conclusions as she would - she had said nothing untruthful, after all. "And you are?"

"I am Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, and your master from now on," the other girl said, her voice indicating great happiness. "I called you in my summoning and bound you as a familiar."

A raised eyebrow.

"I was unaware that humans could be bound as familiars, Miss Vallière," the raven-haired girl noted, as none of the stories she had read in an attempt to improve her "expressiveness", nor the ones that Azaka had shared, had indicated anything about human familiars.

"W-well, apparently they can be," this "Louise" sputtered, seemingly flustered by the mild reproach she sensed in Fujino's tone. "Why, do you know much about magic? Is that what your staff means?"

"No, Miss Vallière, it means I am blind."

"B-b-bli-"

Contrary to all the particulars of etiquette that her family and tutors had drilled her on since she was in the cradle, Louise de La Vallière's mouth dropped open in a poleaxed expression, freezing in place as the word "blind" raced through her mind. A blind familiar. A familiar reflected the nature of the master's magic. Her familiar was crippled, which meant...

A rictus of horror crossed her face, but mercifully, she was freed from thinking about such things for too long, as her mind shut down to prevent further damage, her body fainting dead away from the shock.

Professor Jean Colbert suppressed a sigh, palm cradling his forehead as he felt the beginnings of a headache begin to settle in.

This...was truly a complicated situation, given everything that had transpired, and he had a feeling special accommodations would be necessary, since a human familiar had different needs from other sorts of beast...especially one which apparently could not see.

"Students, you are dismissed for now," the teacher enjoined his charges. "Please head back to the castle and inform Mrs. Chevreuse that she is to take over instruction for the day. I will be along shortly."

The students looked at Colbert, then to the fallen Louise and the odd woman who had been summoned as if wanting to see what would happen, but seeing the professor give them a stern look, floated into the air, taking off towards the castle in the distance.

"Come with me then, if you would, Sister Fujino," the man sighed, shaking his head. "It appears we have much to discuss due to the unusual circumstances of your arrival. Given your situation, I suppose you would prefer an escort to the castle?"

"I am not entirely helpless, Mr..."

She trailed off meaningfully, leaving the other an opening to give his name.

"Ah, heh heh, how silly of me to forget. I am Professor Colbert."

"...Mr. Colbert, but yes, that would be much appreciated," she answered, her posture looking firm and graceful, though there was no real emotion in her gaze. "I am not as familiar with this area as you are, assuredly."

Nodding, the much-put upon professor used his wand to levitate Louise's body so that she could be more easily brought back to the castle, beginning to beckon for her to follow, but stopping in mid-gesture, thinking better of it.

"Come along then," he said at last, heading off to the grand Academy in the distance, with the mysterious young woman who had been summoned falling into step beside him, sweeping the area around her with her cane, and the unconscious form of Louise de la Vallière trailing along behind.

* * *

Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière shuddered as she woke from her sleep, hyperventilating, eyes wide with terror and trepidation as she looked over her surroundings, frantically trying to confirm where she was, while looking for anything out of the ordinary, though she relaxed when she saw that she was in the ornate room that served as her quarters at the Academy, not outside, and that it was nighttime. Obviously then, she had simply had a terrible nightmare in which she had summoned a familiar who was blind, a girl who, for all her beauty and apparent power, was as crippled as Louise's magic.

"Haa…aaah…hhaa…ahh…haaa…"

It took quite a few minutes for her breathing to calm and to suppress her involuntary shaking, her eyes flittering across her surroundings to make sure there was nothing suspicious about. Nothing at all, except-

A shadowy figure stood at the window, with hair of night and ominous eyes the color of blood, a staff of pure white in her hands, causing her to shrink back and reach for her wand, only to find to her horror that it had been left on her dresser and was quite out of reach.

"W-who are you?" Louise whimpered, her expression fearful as she trailed off into a pitiful mumble.

"Shouldn't you know, as the one who summoned me earlier?" Fujino asked quietly, words that evoked unwelcome flashes of memory that chilled the Vallière girl to the bone.

What she had seen wasn't a dream.

She had summoned a familiar. A battle-maiden of the Church.

A women who was blind.

_No._

"No...it can't be...you..."

In spite of all the effort she had put into magecraft, Founder Brimir had apparently spurned her offerings, making a mockery of her summoning rite - one that the prophet himself had invented to call forth the most suitable familiar for a mage. After year upon year of failure upon failure, after dreaming and hoping and praying each and every night for a miracle..._this_ was what she was given?

Instead of a dragon, manticore, griffin, or some other noble beast that would make her family proud, she had summoned a blind woman whose assets put her to shame, a servant of the Church who could never be truly loyal to her - it was no doubt a message from God.

_'A sign from Brimir and God that I am nothing but a Zero...'_

The strawberry blonde swallowed, feeling hot, heavy tears welling up in her eyes as the realization struck her. God hated her, despised her pretensions of nobility enough to send a very personal message to her. For in a world where nobility was defined as the capacity to perform magic, she who had no magic was thought of as nothing but a trumped up commoner who was looked down upon by everyone, no matter her title or the wealth of her family.

With this...with this...

"Get out..." Louise whimpered raggedly, trying to resist the sobs and hics threatening to overcome her. She wouldn't...she wouldn't show weakness in front of someone from the Church. "Get out."

"Miss Vallière? Is something-"

_**"GET OUT!"**_

A hysterical half-scream half-snarl issued from the young mage's throat as she hurled pillows at the shadowed figure she had summoned, though oddly, none of them seemed to hit, simply twisting out of the raven-haired beauty's way as the "nun" obeyed her command and left, her cane tapping along the floor before her to give her warning of potential obstacles on the ground.

It felt like a small eternity before the battle-maiden disappeared from her sight and exited the room, with the resounding boom of the closing door the death knell of her hopes and dreams.

Nothing made sense anymore.

The walls seemed to close in, with her once opulent room seemingly like a prison, as sobs and cries ripped through her small frame, nearly inhuman wails clawing their way from her throat and lungs as she mourned and screamed and shook, thrashing about, clawing, curling into a ball, until her voice was hoarse and she collapsed in a haze of pain and exhaustion.

_'What do I do...Mother...Sister...God...why? What do I do?'_

* * *

About the grounds of the Tristain Academy of Magic, a solitary figure cloaked in shadow walked in silence, quiet footsteps preceded by the tapping of her long white cane, helping her to get her bearings in this brave new world she had been cast into. It was a strange place that reminded her somewhat of Reien, where most attending were of the upper class, and yet it was quite different in the way strange powers like magic were handled.

In this society, magic was paramount, and ability in the arcane arts was the mark of nobility, not wealth or political power (though those surely helped), a doctrine passed on by the Church since the time of the Founder many years ago. It was for that reason, Colbert had explained, that Louise, a daughter of the powerful Duke de la Vallière, was mocked and tormented by her peers - and the fact that she had summoned an odd familiar had not helped.

Unprecedented, to be sure, even if Colbert thought he recognized the runes, though he had concentrated his questions more on her blindness and limitations, as well as probing at the extent of her knowledge and abilities.

Blindness and other disabilities were not usually talked about in general Halkeginian culture, for if one had the resources, magic could cure most things short of death, and if one did not, one could make...other arrangements, such as selling oneself into indentured servitude for an extra stipend, as some peasants did to advance their lot in life. Those who were...damaged, however, who magic could not heal, were ostracized as an example of society's secret shames, not spoken of, let alone allowed to walk the streets - and in the case of the lower classes, couldn't normally survive.

If one had wealth and magical ability, such issues could be _somewhat_ mitigated, but the stigma still existed, even for those of the wealthiest or most powerful families. Most of the time, nobles suffering from incurable ailments or crippled in some way were just kept at home and not spoken of much outside their lands. They could travel and had access to things according to their station, but were certainly not considered marriageable, or considered for most positions in greater society, as in the case of Louise's sister, Cattleya Yvette La Baume Le Blanc De La Fontaine.

Commoners for whom there was no cure, on the other hand, had even more limited options. In their case, their only real choice was to give care and custody of the disabled individual (especially if it was a child) to a representative of the Church, who would find them some means of meaningful work at one of their monasteries or convents.

In both cases, it was preferred that such individuals were kept out of sight and out of mind, and those in Albion, Germanina, Gallia, or Tristain almost never saw the commoner variant out in public, nor many members of the Church in general, as many of the lower ranking ones remained in the Holy Empire of Romalia, cloistered away in one of the facilities designed for their use.

So the status quo was maintained, and society not forced to face its failings.

Until now, of course, when an odd summoning had called forth one of them - a sightless maiden of battle, with the broken girl binding her as a familiar - a strange situation for everyone involved, though he had assured her that the Academy would make sure she was treated well, and Fujino had assured the man she had no ill feelings on the matter.

One served in different ways, after all, and she had certainly encountered worst.

After all, nothing could unsettle her as badly as the bearer of Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, and Shiki Ryougi was nowhere to be found in this particular world.

So she explored, quietly wandering as best she could with senses other than sight - away from the girl who had summoned her and now seemed gravely troubled by her presence, who reminded her too much of Kaori Tachibana and Tsuyuha Miyazuki.

But though she was sightless, Fujino was all too aware of eyes gazing upon her from the distance, as if trying to take her measure.

The eyes of a maid, troubled by the presence of a member of the Church and how someone her age could seem so dignified and assured...even when unable to see.

The eyes of a lustful blond, distracted from a rendezvous with a first year by the exotic beauty's lovely figure and delicate features, struck by the grace of her movements...and smirking at the thought she could not see him watching.

The eyes of a watchful Jean Colbert, trying to decipher her motives and intentions, as he knew better than anyone else how corrupt the Church could be after certain experiences in his past.

And the eyes of a winged shadow, passing in the sky.


	2. Tangled Interpretations

**Recollections of Pain**

A Familiar of Zero/Kara no Kyoukai Story

Disclaimer: In this particular universe, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to elements of the Zero no Tsukaima franchise, Kara no Kyoukai, the Nasuverse as a whole, or any other modern works that I may reference in this story.

In a world where magic is the proof of nobility, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is an outcast, bearing the stigma of failure, as she has never been able to use the simplest of spells. Scorned by society as "the Zero," a woeful all-but-commoner with pretensions to the high nobility, the Springtime Summoning Rite is her last chance to prove otherwise. To everyone's surprise, she summons something - but what does it mean that her familiar is blind?

* * *

The day after the Springtime Familiar Summoning, there were no morning classes scheduled, in the belief that the second-year students might have worn themselves out in calling forth their familiars and would need their rest.

Having been in operation for thousands of years, the Tristain Academy of Magic had learned from experience how exhausting the Springtime Familiar Summoning could be for its participants, especially those who ended up calling forth more powerful beings. By necessity, the summoning ritual drew from a mage's reserves to power the ancient Void spell the runic pattern invoked, allowing it to find the creature most suited to them, which meant that the amount of willpower was depleted according to how far the spell had to reach and how much resistance the targeted creature offered.

When purely mundane creatures (like owls, frogs, or mice) were called forth and bound, the depletion of magical energy was negligible, even for a weak dot mage. More esoteric beings like giant moles, bugbears, salamanders, or even the occasional griffin or dragon, on the other hand, tended to be more draining for those involved.

Naturally, no one had any idea of how much magical energy was involved in the summoning of a human, since as far as anyone knew, such a thing had never happened.

...until now, at least, when the talentless "Zero" had somehow summoned one.

Frankly, they'd expected Louise to fail to call forth anything, proving that she was utterly inept and incapable-that she didn't deserve to carry the title of mage. In that case, she would have been quickly expelled from the Academy, probably disowned or married off to some other noble for a political alliance. But once again, the "Zero" had defied all reasonable expectations, summoning and binding to her service a battle-maiden of the Church, which raised any number of uncomfortable questions.

And in the absence of knowledge...rumor thrived, as bits of truth mixed with wild speculation to fill the void.

By her own admission, Sister Fujino was blind, yet had "faced death and lived" as a Knight, indicating that she had likely not been born sightless, as those who could not see had no place on the battlefield.

The mostly unknown exception to this was a very select set of mages of square rank, talented individuals who used utter mastery of a single element to compensate for any lost senses – or to augment whatever senses one possessed.

A fire mage could use changes in temperature and the presence of heat sources could determine the numbers of people in an area, their position relative to the mage, their surface emotions, even the type of terrain one was in and the abilities an enemy had. A wind mage could do much the same, based on how the local volume of air was distributed and how it flowed. Water mages, most often considered healers, could pinpoint moving volumes of water to isolate the presence of living creatures, detect the subtle changes in moisture caused by emotion, or map surrounding flows of water (which was extremely useful in cities). And earth mages had their own tricks, with the most powerful of them capable of sensing the vibrations caused by any who walked upon the ground…or the traces of iron in a person's blood.

But as the number of individuals to have ever reached those levels of both mastery _and _power in the history of Halkeginia could be counted on one hand, and they didn't tend to speak about their abilities, perhaps the students could be forgiven for not being aware that such a thing was possible.

If they had, the rumor mill would have likely been churning with an even more frenetic quality, as they tried to puzzle out exactly why "Sister Fujino" had been summoned, and if this meant that Louise was secretly the bearer of some monstrous power that could shake the foundations of the world...but even with what limited information they had, some wondered about her.

How had Louise summoned her?

What did it mean that she was blind, with eyes the color of blood?

But most importantly, how _had_ she lost her sight?

The last question was the most troubling, for as long as one was alive, there was very little that the healing power of water magic could not fix (given the proper catalysts and reagents). Certain exceptions existed, such as if eyes or other organs had been completely destroyed by magic, but that didn't seem to be the case, so had she simply been afflicted with a curse that all the healing arts of man could not lift?

Say...a curse wrought by Ancient Magic, the powers wielded by the elves, betrayers of the Founder and eternal enemies of God and humanity? But why the curse of blindness and not simply death? It was common knowledge that elves outclassed even square-class mages, and a single elf was capable of destroying an army of a thousand, so if "Sister Fujino" had truly fought one...and come away losing only her sight...

_'The implications of that are...disturbing.'_

So thought Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst, who sat at her desk, drawing odd designs and diagrams on a sheet of parchment as she looked out at the courtyard where some of the servants were bustling back and forth, going about the daily tasks required to keep the Academy running. Having begged off entertaining the usual nighttime queue of male visitors following her somewhat draining summoning, she had stirred from her slumber as the sun crept lazily over the horizon, and had been unable to fall asleep since, her mind troubled by the bit of conversation she had heard between Louise and her "familiar" before the pinkette had passed out...and Professor Colbert had dismissed them all to speak with the supposed battle-nun.

Contrary to what most might think of her, the tanned redhead had quite a brilliant mind, with a knack for intuiting things from the smallest scraps of knowledge. Such was the reason for her impulsiveness, as nothing challenged her for long, whether classwork or more personal relations. For a few days, a week, even as much as a month, something or someone might hold her interest, but inevitably she would figure out what puzzles a person or situation held, quickly becoming bored with the status quo and shaking things up for her own entertainment.

Kirche spurned convention, doing as she pleased and angering many people in the process, especially the young and petty girls whose delicate Tristainian sensibilities were offended that the sultry Germanian would simply seduce their love interests simply for her amusement... and to help her fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. Nor was this a new pattern of behavior, as her improper conducts and devil-may-care attitude was among the reasons she had been cast out of every magical academy in Germania.

Even by the standards of her countrywomen, she was considered an outcast. Thus, it was no surprise that she didn't make friends easily, since what she did wasn't anywhere near the norm. Indeed, her only connection of note was the soft-spoken Tabitha, a fellow outsider who she had only become friends with through exceptional circumstances.

In many ways, Tabitha was a mystery to Kirche, with the other's reticent nature and odd thought patterns forcing the Germanian to have her wits about her whenever she spoke with the other triangle mage, one who wielded ice adeptly as she did fire. In every interaction, the redhead had to interpret the nuances of body language, extrapolate meaning from a few pithy words, and react to seemingly inexplicable actions or observations-even as the blunette occasionally defied expectation or prediction.

Most would have tired of this quickly, but Kirche found it invigorating, making sure to spend as much time as she could with the blue-haired girl, for things were never boring or simple with Tabitha around...just the way she liked it.

So, when Tabitha had expressed some concerns (if not in so many words) over the unusual summon called forth by Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, the girl labeled as the talentless Zero who had never succeeded in casting a single spell, Kirche listened. And on further reflection, the details of what she could remember niggled at her, raising questions as to the validity of her initial judgments.

_'This is going nowhere...while I pride myself on figuring things out with very little information, I don't have nearly enough to come to a conclusion.'_

There were just too many uncertainties, too many variables that she found herself unable to account for, and to resolve these, she needed to know more...preferably from the source.

_'...well, I could always ask Louise,_' the Germanian noted to herself, a small smirk tugging at the edges of her lips. _ 'After all, it's impossible for the "Zero" to lie to anyone. Even if she tries, she's just like an open book...'_

While the fire mage appreciated the fact that her self-proclaimed rival had spunk, in her usual state, the pinkette was a fuming mishmash of emotional issues, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. Too boring, too predictable...which is why Kirche poked fun at Louise so often, as it was far more fun to see how she would react each and every time, and who would be caught in the blast.

"So what do you think, Flame?" she asked, turning to the large, dark-red lizard about the size of a tiger lounging on the floor next to her, its tail tipped with flame, and sparks and embers floating about its mouth.

"Pyaaauuooo?" it croaked lazily, a cry that had an approximate meaning of "why not?"

"I suppose I might as well," the redhead said lazily, easing herself up out of her chair and heading towards the door.

_'At least it will be entertaining, and maybe I'll get some answers. After all, Louise had probably awakened at some point in the night, if the muffled scream was any indication...'_

Either that or Louise had finally managed to get over her hangups about being chaste and honorable, finding another outlet for her frustrations. Perhaps one of the maids or other serving staff, since none of the other students would have laid a finger on her in that way.

_'Hmm, now that I think about it, many of the staff do have nice, toned bodies due to the hard work they do...and I don't think I've ever been with a commoner before. That could be an interesting experience..._

Kirche smiled slightly at the thought, making a mental note that it might be something worth trying in the future, if the students of the Academy continued to bore her so. With that, she left the room, but not before casting an impatient glare at her still lazing familiar.

"Come along, Flame, the hallway is still cold at this time of morning."

Her words were friendly enough, but the flame lizard could tell it was an order nonetheless. It sighed, debating whether or not to obey, as it didn't want to leave its comfortable spot in the sun. Still, as a familiar, it was bound to serve its mistress, so as the redhead walked into the hallway, it followed reluctantly with a cute shuffling movement that seemed at odds with what one might expect of such a large creature.

It found its master nearby, leaning on the wall and watching a door across the hall.

"Uwoor?" Flame growled inquisitively, wondering just what Kirche was up to now. When she had mentioned finding someone, the salamander had had something more active in mind.

"Oh don't give me that look," the redhead replied, not even bothering to glance over at the familiar. "Even I'm not crass enough to just barge into someone's room in the morning. If we want to obtain information from Louise, we'll just have to wait until she comes out."

The salamander grudgingly acquiesced, as this made a certain amount of sense. After all, when hunting prey, it was generally accepted procedure not to enter the prey's den, instead waiting for it to emerge so that it could be cornered more easily. And as a reptile of sorts, Flame _was_ used to sitting around doing nothing for long periods of time...he just preferred to do so in the sunlight, where he didn't have to consume so much of his own energy to stay warm.

...Flame might be a salamander, with the affinity to fire magic that implied, but like others of the reptilian bent, he was actually rather lazy.

Fortunately for him and his master, they did not have to wait long.

About ten minutes after the duo first went into the hallway, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière emerged from her room, haggard and alone, the dark circles under her eyes hinting that she had not slept well at all. More alarming was that the pinkette was basically dragging herself forward, her head bowed, an almost tangible cloud of despair hanging over her-she didn't even seem to notice the presence of her self-proclaimed rival nearby.

_'That's strange. Louise is usually a compact, angry bundle of energy...and one would think she'd be happier after actually casting a spell successfully.'_

Instead, the Zero (who usually made no bones about the fact that she resented the "title" and was willing to get in people's faces about it) seemed almost..._defeated_, which was not what any reasonable person would expect from a girl who had proven to her classmates that yes, she was actually a mage.

_'Oh well, might as well ask then...'_

"Good morning, Louise," the redhead greeted cheerily, stepping into the center of the hallway and announcing her presence.

At the sound of Kirche's voice, Louise flinched as if struck. Kirche _was_ her third-most hated person in the world right now, with her second being the woman she had summoned, and the first...herself.

"...what do you want, Kirche?" the pinkette asked resignedly, halting in her tracks but not turning around. From this angle, her mane of strawberry blonde hair obscured her face, but it did nothing to mask the petite mage's current ease.

"Louise...are you alright?" the Germanian replied, finding herself..._concerned _for the other. Even after her greatest failures, her self-proclaimed rival had never acted like this before. The diminutive mage would always vow to do better, hold her head high and challenge anyone who didn't think she was capable of eventually getting the hang of her magic.

Was success not all that she'd thought it would be?

"I'm fine," Louise mumbled with a sigh, though her body gave the lie to her words, as she rocked back and forth slowly as if she'd fall over at any moment. A pause, then... "Was there something else?"

As a matter of fact, there were a number of things the Germanian wished to inquire about, but only one really stood out at the moment, since she didn't think the pinkette wouldn't give an honest response to most of the others.

"Yes actually. Where is your familiar?" Kirche asked pointedly, making a show of looking around the empty hallway.

"I don't know..." Louise seemed to sag at this admission, shaking her head with a deep, shuddering exhalation.

"...what, did she abandon you, finding you an unworthy master?" the Germanian ribbed sarcastically, hoping the bit of repartee would spur the pinkette to anger. And for a moment, when the 'Zero' actually lifted her head and glared at Kirche, she thought she had succeeded-but the moment passed and Louise turned away, as if desperate to be anywhere but here.

_'Something is very wrong...'_

"I..." the Vallière began weakly, her voice just louder than a whisper. "That's not..."

_Click! Click! Click!_

At the sound of an all too familiar tapping of wood against stone, Louise fell silent, hoping against all hope that the sound wasn't what she thought it was, that it did not herald the coming of the figure of her worst nightmares made real, the so-called "familiar" that was the embodiment of her greatest fears.

But she hoped in vain.

As both the pinkette and her usual bully turned towards the junction where the curious sound was echoing from, they saw a white cane poking around the corner, quickly followed by the raven-haired figure of Fujino Asagami, whose habit-like dress billowed behind her in the hall.

At the sight of the one she had summoned, Louise paled, a strangled cry tearing from her throat as she turned and all but skittered away as if desperately trying to flee from a demon. Hearing this, Fujino paused in her walking, shaking her head slightly.

"A pity," intoned the quiet voice of one who was in fact a demon _hunter_, sightless red eyes simply staring into the distance_. _ "I had hoped last night was an aberration, but it seems I will need to make other arrangements."

It took Kirche a few moments to recover from the shock of seeing the usually feisty Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière just turn and run from _anyone_. No matter if she had been blatantly wrong or incapable of succeeding in the past, the pinkette had always stubbornly stood her ground against her enemies, so why was she running _from her own familiar, _from the one being who she should not have to fear.

_'This just gets curiouser and curiouser...'_

"Sister Fujino...good morning," the Germanian greeted, walking over to get a better look at the purported battle-nun, whose concealing vestments could not completely hide a figure the envy of any at the Academy (except Kirche's), or the way she stood and moved as if used to a measure of deference and respect.

_'Not at all like someone who was consigned to a nunnery from a young age...'_

"A pleasant morning to you as well," the psychic returned, nodding her head slightly, resting both hands on the pommel of her cane. "It seems you have me at a disadvantage, Miss..."

"... von Zerbst," the redhead said with a smile, curtsying slightly though she knew the other could not see it. It wouldn't do for a Zerbst to forget her manners before a member of the Church, especially after a Vallière had already done so. "Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst, that is, Sister." She hesitated for a moment, but decided to continue. "May I ask what happened? Your summoner seems to have run off..."

"Indeed," Fujino replied mildly, her lips seeming to curve into a slight frown. "It seems she is troubled by my presence." A question came to her mind then, one she hoped one of the students would answer, as clairvoyance told her that this one was at the summoning ritual. "And while I am told that the summoning of a human familiar is unprecedented, I do not _usually _inspire feelings of abject terror."

For all her experience at reading people, Kirche couldn't tell if the battle-nun had made that comment in jest, which disturbed her, since she prided herself on being a good judge of human character.

"I...see," the usually boisterous Germanian noted, then thought to explain, as an offended member of the clergy usually meant bad things would soon occur. "With due respect, perhaps it was because of your condition?"

"My condition?" Fujino echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Do you mean...?"

"...your blindness," Kirche said bluntly. As a general rule, the Germanian preferred directness to subtlety, since it was so much easier to get one's point across without being misunderstood. "A question, if you would, Sister Fujino?"

"Yes, Miss von Zerbst?"

"You weren't always blind, were you?" the Germanian inquired, more to confirm her suspicions than to simply probe for information at this point. There were some things that could be discerned from a glance, if one had the skills to do so, and in her estimation, the way the nun carried herself had a sense of grace that she hadn't expected.

"If I answer that question, will you assist me to the headmaster's office?" was the odd response, as the demon hunter turned towards her, seeming to look at her with disturbing blood-red eyes. "I have business there, and as capable as I am, I do have...limitations."

More to the point, while Fujino could actually use her clairvoyance to navigate about and eventually find the office, she didn't want to reveal such a capability unless she had to, much as use of her _other_ ability should be avoided for now until she had a better handle on the situation. She still didn't know too much about the place she had been summoned to, aside from a brief overview of the Academy and scattered bits on the Church, so caution was advised for now.

"That sounds fair," the flame mage answered, nodding slowly. It wasn't as if the nun was asking for much in exchange for what the Germanian wanted to know, and she could certainly understand not wanting to concede an advantage. "So...?"

"Your assessment is correct," the psychic stated simply, her expression returning to unreadable neutrality, crimson eyes seeming to look right through the Germanian's skull, though Kirche knew such a thing was ridiculous. "I lost my sight in less than a year ago, after a battle against an inhuman foe with ominous eyes."

"Oh?"

"A foe that rendered anything I did useless," she murmured, thinking back to her encounter with Shiki Ryougi, the terrifying bearer of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, against who even a god would be rendered helpless. "No magic, no weapon would have killed her with her ability. ...I did well to destroy her arm, but in the end, I was the one defeated, spared only on a whim."

"You..."

"I would have died that night, had she struck the killing blow," Fujino continued, her voice low and hypnotic, lost in thought. "How foolish I was then..."

She trailed off, a soft mirthless chuckle escaping her lips as Kirche just stared.

"...how many people were with you?" the flame mage asked at last, her voice low and almost reverent at the thought that the person before her had _fought an elf_ and lived. At least, that was the only type of being she knew who would be capable of negating magic with ease.

"I was alone at the time," came the reply, an answer that rocked the Germanian back on her metaphorical heels, leaving her at a loss for words.

_'...she _singlehandedly_ fought an Elf and lived? That's...'_

"So... what do you do now that you're blind?" Kirche found herself asking, before she'd fully processed what she'd said. "I mean, you aren't in a combat position anymore, are you?"

There were a few moments of silence as Fujino considered the question.

"I..." the demon hunter began, but trailed off, considering how to word her current activities. After a few seconds, she settled on a description. "I save others from themselves."

Kirche smiled a bit at this, nodding.

"Well then, I believe I promised to help you find your way to the Headmaster's office?" the redhead noted, changing the subject. The raven-haired nun had given her a lot to think about, and the least she could do was keep her word in such a simple thing.

"Yes, lead the way please."

With that, the psychic began to walk once more, with the fire mage and her salamander flanking her, helping her navigate the labyrinthine halls without the use of clairvoyance. After all, sometimes, it could be a relaxing thing to simply listen to the world.

* * *

Elsewhere in the Academy, others who had had exhausted themselves in... ways other than summoning that night were finally stirring, with one of these being the second year named Guiche de Gramont, the blond fop notorious among the male population for planning arranging late-night rendezvouses with one girl or another. No one knew for certain who his main squeeze was, though some rumors had him dating the elegant Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency, while others had their bets on Katie, the shy flower of the first years, or one of the more minor fangirls who desired him. And he liked to keep a bit of ambiguity about him, for were the ladies not drawn to a man of mystery?

...just as he himself was drawn to the battle-nun that the Zero had somehow summoned. He had never attempted to seduce Tabitha, Louise, or Kirche due to their status as social outcasts, and so the familiar would be off-limits as well, though there was no harm in simply looking, especially when she was blind and could not see him watching.

He groaned, not wanting to get out of bed, as he felt quite warm and content, as the satin sheets felt softer and warmer than he remembered, the mattress supported his back better than usual, and he felt utterly relaxed and loose, as if he had done something quite strenuous but not harmful the night before. Perhaps the world was congratulating him for managing to summon an uncommon familiar, taking his first step towards being recognized as a great mage, the equal of his illustrious father.

"...mmm...Lord Guiche..."

...or maybe it had something to do with the petite brunette who was nuzzling his naked chest, her ends of her long brown hair gently touching his skin, her arms wrapped around him. The girl as well-the first year Katie, he thought her name was-was also quite naked, and the proof of their nighttime activities was all too evident in the spot of blood on the sheets and the dried liquids between them.

_'I...what did I do last night?'_

He remembered some of the nighttime rendezvous, during which the girl had offered him some baked goods-and then he had become distracted by Zero's familiar and the girl had become distraught-so he had kissed her.

Things had gone a little further than anticipated, with Katie being sensitive in a way he certainly hadn't expected, and the night had ended between the sheets in blissful exhaustion.

...and it had been good. More awkward than he'd expected, with a good deal of fumbling towards ecstasy, but...good, all the same. He supposed he could understand why so many males were desperate for Kirche, if she would let them experience such a thing so easily but-

_Knock! Knock!_

_-_that was last night. Someone was knocking at his door. But who?

_'Oh, that's right...Montmorency was supposed to meet me for breakfast,'_ he thought in a haze, enjoying the feel of skin on skin as- _'wait. Montmorency. And I'm in bed. With Katie. Oh. Oh. Oh. Badbadbadbad...'_

The consequences of that thought sunk in, and the playboy went very, pale, as ice ran down his spine.

"...did you want to continue...Lord Guiche?"

And now Katie was waking up, looking up at him with loving eyes, and his swollen maleness was rising to the occasion as she ground her hips against him unconsciously.

"Guiche, open this door!"

The sudden shout made both of them freeze in place, as Katie recognized the voice. She looked to Guiche, to the door, and back to Guiche in horror and sadness.

"...Lord Guiche, a-are you and Miss Montmorency..."

"N-no, of course not, Katie," he hastened to reassure the girl in his arms-and in his bed. Since things had gone this far, he might as well go all the way. Better that than alienating both girls and getting nothing-an attempt to deny the situation would probably only make things worse. "Listen, the only person I hold in my heart is you..."

"Oh, Lord Guiche..."

Hearing such words made Katie very, very happy, and in her joy, the brunette bent down and kissed her paramour, rolling him over-just as the door was opened, and Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency stepped in, about to badger Guiche for being lazy in the mornings and even forgetting to lock his door...only for words to die in her mouth at the sight before her.

Guiche naked with another woman on top of him.

Guiche kissing another woman.

Guiche doing..._things_ with another woman. Things he hadn't done even with her.

Horror, jealousy, anger, grief, betrayal...all of these things and more welled up inside the water mage, and without conscious thought, her wand was in her hand.

_**"Guuiiiichhhhe...you...!"**_

A whip of water lashed out-

_**"Ah!"**_

-digging an angry score into the top of Guiche's back and knocking him off of Katie and the bed.

_'I...there's only one thing to do!'_

Run like hell.

And so Guiche the Gramont, son of Count and General Gramont, ran as fast as his legs could take him, sprinting past a shocked Montmorency (not expecting him to come right at her) for the door, and slamming it behind him.

It took her a second or two to process just what had happened, but when she did, Montmorency saw red, utterly ignoring the scared brunette on the bed as she raced out the door after her...well, ex now, roaring: _**"YOU CHEATING, PHILANDERING SCUM, GET BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!"**_

Katie just squeaked at this explosion of violence, but the utmost thought in her mind was that if she didn't do anything, Guiche would be killed. So, thinking quickly, she just wrapped the soiled sheets around her petite form and grabbed her wand, dashing after them, hoping she wouldn't be too late.

* * *

Guiche ran.

He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, unconcerned about who might be in his way, his state of undress, or even that he was rather less fit than he liked, and his lungs were beginning to burn from the exertion.

...he'd have to correct at some point in the future, when a murderous blonde harpy wasn't after him, intent on ripping him to bloody little pieces (with magic or bare hands didn't matter at this point).

For now, all that mattered was getting away and keeping certain of his organs intact, as the playboy was reasonably certain that even water magic would not be able to fix...certain amputations or removals, if the assailant was vicious enough about it. Coupled with the fact that as a water mage, Montmorency knew how to heal, and thus knew how to harm...

_'...I'm doomed. But at least I had a good last night?'_

Bare feet slapping against stone, he rounded yet another corner with all the speed he could muster, hoping against hope that he'd manage to make good his escape.

Unfortunately, he was looking behind him and so failed to notice the presence of three figures ahead of him...until he ran into the ample chest of the very maiden of battle he had desired, bowling her over and knocking the blind girl to the floor.

"...Guiche?" A voice he vaguely recognized as that of the busty Germanian Kirche exclaimed in shock. "What are you doing?"

In that moment, he became aware of several things.

One: His face was cushioned by something soft...the soft chest of the battle-nun, which had to be the largest in the Academy next to Kirche.

Two: Several precious seconds had passed by, seconds in which he was not moving.

Three: If Montmorency didn't kill him, the nun probably would, since assaulting a member of the Church could be seen as the basest heresy.

With that thought, the lad passed out in shock and fear at what was about to befall him, his entire body flushed the red of vine-ripe cherry tomatoes.

The sound of rapid footsteps echoed down the hall, accompanied by an angry half-growl, half-shriek.

_**"YOU...!"**_

A whip of water-no, a blade-sliced down, propelled with all the fury and power of a maiden scorned, shrieking as it rent the air-

_Whoosh!_

_-_but before it could connect with its intended target (and possibly hit the one beneath), the blade of water was vaporized by a gout of flame, the water flashing instantly to steam as it boiled away, and the wand was suddenly wrenched from her hand, clattering to the floor and leaving Montmorency weaponless.

"...It would be wise not to involve others in your disputes, Montmorency," declared the proud Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst, who had now interposed herself between the blonde water mage and her intended target.

"W-W-Why are you interfering?" Montmorency asked, her rage-clouded mind not understanding why Kirche would be there, interfering with a just punishment, stopping her from hurting the boy who played with her emotions as he deserved. Not surprisingly, she jumped to the wrong conclusion, her body trembling and flushing red as unwanted images came into her mind. "...did you sleep with Guiche, too, y-you Germanian slu-?"

The redhead shifted her wand slightly, as Montmorency's mouth was violently closed with a _click._

"I'm doing you a favor," Kirche replied, looking the girl with the drill curls in the eye as she motioned toward the direction of Guiche. "Consider who you nearly attacked in your thirst for blood."

Not entirely willingly, the blonde looked down, and saw that Guiche's form lay on top of the mysterious blind woman named Fujino Asagami, who was...

_'...a battle-maiden of the Church. Oh holy Founder...'_

She paled in realization, her mouth and throat suddenly dry as the enormity of what had almost happened. If she had actually attacked a high-ranking member of the clergy without provocation, what would have happened? Hurting the nun was one thing, but what would the Church think? Or would the Founder have condemned her soul to eternal perdition for daring to attack someone doing His work?

"I-I'm terribly sorry..." the blonde whispered in a small voice, almost a squeak, as the atmosphere around her seemed almost oppressive.

"You should be more careful," admonished the psychic, who in one swift motion rolled the unconscious form of Guiche off of her and eased herself to her feet using her cane for assistance, leaving the body of the playboy splayed in a spread-eagle position in the middle of the hallway. Oddly though, the nun's face bore a thin, almost cruel smile. "It would be a shame if someone were to die unnecessarily."

With a nervous swallow, Montmorency backed away slowly, finding that her feet had a mind of their own. She couldn't even stop to pick up her wand, so it was fortunate that Kirche's salamander picked up the implement for her, proffering it to the shaken blonde as she prepared to retreat.

Unfortunately, it was just at that moment that the pursuing Katie arrived on the scene, her sheet-wrapped body squeaking to a stop at the sight before her as nervous eyes flicked from Kirche's chest to the presence of the nun Guiche was looking at the night before to...

_'...Lord Guiche's body...'_

Of course, Monmorency happened to notice the newcomer, her mind rapidly identifying it was the first year Katie...who had been the one with Guiche (not so hard to deduce, as she was wrapped up in his sheets), who had _stolen _him from her.

Beneath the surface, wrath seethed as she turned and stared at the brunette intensely, wondering what to do to the little whore.

"Heh, from how you're looking at her, I'm not sure if you're really jealous of the girl for taking Guiche..." Kirche said slyly, looking at the trio involved.

"W-what are you saying, of course I'm-"

"-or jealous of Guiche for taking this girl from you?"

A beat, as the words sank in. And then...

"W-w-what are you trying to say?" Montmorency roared, whirling on Kirche and looking as if she was about to kill someone...preferably with her bare hands.

"Ohoho, struck a nerve, did I?" the redhead noted with amusement, her eyes dancing with mirth. "Don't tell me you actually do swi-"

"I! DO! NOT!"

A dragon's roar could scarce have been more impressive, as Fujino just raised an eyebrow, not having expected such antics to arise in the morning. Such things had never been part of life at Reien, and so she simply watched, taking everything in.

"Oh, you don't?" asked the Germanian, smirking. "That's a surprise. I mean, that would mean you're stuck with someone like Guiche, who like most of the boys on campus are probably all talk, no action. For all his flirtatious ways, he's probably terrible in bed."

"T-that's not true! Lord Guiche is..." Katie spoke before thinking, quick to defend her beloved...but even quicker to cut herself off once she realized what she'd said, and to who.

Hearing this, Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency turned towards her rival in love with murder in her eyes, her newly retrieved wand brandished as baleful eyes locked onto the slim figure of her enemy.

"You...you..."

"You know, Montmorency, in your situation, most people would resolve their issues with a duel," Kirche suggested helpfully, giving a piece of helpful advice. "At least that way you would not involve people who have nothing to do with the situation in your disputes."

"...b-but duels are barbaric!" the water mage sputtered, muttering something about how only a half-civlized Germanian would suggest...

Kirche raised an eyebrow at the comment.

"...oh, and running through the halls like a harridan, trying to maim Guiche and not caring who gets in your way _isn't?_" the redhead asked sardonically, rolling her eyes. "At least in a duel, you can set the ground rules and not let anyone else get hurt." She turned to the nun she was escorting, a slight bit of regret on her face. "Come along, Sister Fujino. My apologies that you had to suffer all that."

With that, Kirche walked away, the mysterious battle maiden of the church and the salamander walking beside her as they disappeared into the distance.

Left alone with Guiche and Katie in the hallway, Montmorency comes to a decision, pointing her wand squarely at her former lover as she tried to focus her anger.

"No! Don't hurt him!"

But her concentration was broken by the intrepid Katie, who had her own wand drawn in trepidation, pointed right at Montmorency, as if promising that if harm was done to Guiche, harm would be inflicted.

"You...you're going to protect him?" Monmon shrieked, looking at the shaking brunette, who had but a sheet wrapped around her. She was a first year, young, and quite afraid of her upperclassman's wrath, yet she stood firm, not wanting to see her lover hurt. "You..."

"Don't hurt him," the first year repeated, driven to confront this foe by her love for Guiche.

"Fine," Montmorency bit off reluctantly. "...then we meet in Vestri Court."

* * *

Vestri Court, the central garden between the Wind and Fire elemental towers of the Academy, was a wonderful place for those who wanted to be alone, and so Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière found herself drifting there after her run-in with the familiar she didn't want to see. Why...why had this happened to her? What had she done wrong that Brimir would inflict such a thing upon her?

It was absurd, and so she sat there in the shadows of the tower, alone and unnoticed. There, she noticed the approach of two young mages...other girls from the look of it. Recognizing Montmorency, the pinkette wondered if the blonde had come to torment her, to call her a Zero as the summoning had shown she was.

Everything she knew was at an end, lost in the shadows of despair.

She didn't know what to do, and could only watch as other actors moved onto the stage of misery and had their outs.

A clash of two girls, water against earth.

Brute force against finesse.

With one of the foremost second years dueling a first year, for Guiche's honor at that, something that Louise found unexpected, for who would defend that blond, pompous ass?

Louise only shook her head as the clash degenerated from a duel into a magic-powered catfight...and then simply a catfight, with scratching, clawing, hair-pulling and so on, the noises from which she grew tired of. There was always such drama where Guiche was concerned, though the Vallière had no interest in it. After all, there was no reason for her to see to the affairs of that man when there were more pressing concerns on her mind.

Unable to hear herself think, she just waved her wand, trying to cast a silence spell...and like every other time she had tried to make something happen, an explosion occurred.

...silence reigned. It seemed that the two combatants had been knocked unconscious by the force of her blast.

_'...I knocked them out?' _she thought, almost hysterically._ 'Ahahaha...just as I thought. I couldn't cast a spell after all. Well...in the end, they're silent. Haha...haha..ha...'_

Before long, weeping filled the air once more .

* * *

Sometime later, Fujino Asagami found herself in a room in the servant quarters, a rather spartan apartment much like the ones occupied by the maids and cooks who kept the Academy in good working order. Given her concerns on how her presence was negatively affecting her "master's" psychological state, which contraindicated the two of them rooming together, the headmaster had granted her a special dispensation to live in one of the empty servant apartments on campus.

It was smaller than the main castle, more easily navigated about, and opened immediately into the courtyard, which left her close enough to the castle if her presence was needed, but far enough away that she would not have to encounter the...odd behavior of the morning, which Kirche had related to Old Osmond after an odd duel had been concluded.

The encounter had given Fujino a taste of what magic was capable of, and it did make her curious as to how common a thing it must be that they would use it openly for minor disagreements. Azaka had once told her that magic needed to be kept secret or its power would decrease...but apparently this world didn't work by the same rules.

"Um, Sister Fujino," the maid named Siesta was saying, some discomfort in her voice. The maid found it odd that Fujino was one of the few other people around with black hair, a color she'd never seen except within her family. Could it be she was from somewhere far away? "I know it's not much but..."

"This is more than adequate for my needs," Fujino replied with a nod. "Thank you for your kindness, Siesta."

Apparently, the maid had been assigned to her as an assistant should she need it, given her...disability and how unused to dealing with such things most Halkeginians were. It was something extended to her in the belief that she was a member of the Church, and Fujino wondered what such a status truly meant in this world.

_'One more thing to find out, I suppose.'_

"O-of course, Sister," the maid answered nervously. "I'll bring you your meal shortly, if you wish."

"When it is convenient," the demon hunter noted, hands resting on the pommel of her cane. "I would not want to impose."

"N-not at all," Siesta said, though clearly she was nervous about being in the "nun's" presence any longer than she had to be. "May I be excused then, Sister?"

"Of course," Fujino rejoined with a very slight smile. "I am not entirely helpless after all."

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"No offense taken, but for now, I require some sleep."

With a hasty curtsy, the maid left the room, and a weary demon hunter found her way to the bed in the room, stripping off the covers and laying down, quickly falling into a dreamless sleep.


	3. Muted Dissonance

**Recollections of Pain**

A Familiar of Zero/Kara no Kyoukai Story

Disclaimer: In this particular universe, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to elements of the Zero no Tsukaima franchise, Kara no Kyoukai, the Nasuverse as a whole, or any other modern works that I may reference in this story.

In a world where magic is the proof of nobility, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is an outcast, bearing the stigma of failure, as she has never been able to use the simplest of spells. Scorned by society as "the Zero," a woeful all-but-commoner with pretensions to the high nobility, the Springtime Summoning Rite is her last chance to prove otherwise. To everyone's surprise, she summons something - but what does it mean that her familiar is blind?

* * *

In a blink, eyes the color of fresh-spilled blood opened upon a familiar scene: a fight to the death against the only being in the world that Fujino Asagami, the most powerful psychic in the world, truly feared.

The last memory she gained before losing her sight.

Rain, pooling water, violent wind - and a terrible grim reaper clad in a bone-white kimono, bearing ominous eyes that could see the end of all things.

_Slash!_

The flashing arc of a knife carved a lingering trace in the darkness, striking without hesitation at her neck, a strike barely avoided with a desperate evasion-no, avoided only because the psychic flinched from her assailant in fear.

"...go away!"

From the woman who followed through with her assault after her arm had been mangled beyond recognition, knowing she was overmatched and yet smiling. From the woman whose eyes showed no fear of pain or death, only a crazed thrill at being able to hunt such dangerous prey...

_'...a monster...'_

"Why...why doesn't she stop...even when her arm is broken...?"

Her breathing echoed in the air of the cavernous expanse, a rough, ragged sound that betrayed her desperation. For she was fighting not only against the reaper in white, but against the implacable advance of time, the eternal predator against which nothing could last in the end.

Soon enough, if she didn't end it soon, the pain in her abdomen would surpass her ability to bear it, as something inside broke.

And when that happened, the girl who only wanted to know what it was like to live would die.

Her insides were on the verge of breaking down - it was meaningless to fight. And yet, to be human was to do meaningless things, to fight the inevitable even knowing the outcome.

Odd, really, how one kind of meaningless act was called stupidity while another was called bravery or perseverance.

Where did the boundary lie? It was uncertain really, as boundaries were established only by a combination of personal desire and external influences, so that the world was full of empty boundaries, walls of one's own making that separated the normal from the abnormal.

Boundaries only existed when others acknowledged them - otherwise, they did not exist.

And thus, there was nothing standing between Fujino Asagami and her nemesis, who even now, appeared from the shadows, knife gripped tightly in her hand.

Kill or be killed.

There was no other option.

Looking at this foe, Fujino could think only that, as she exerted her power, her vision distorting as the fulcrums created on the foe's head and leg rotated in opposite directions and twisted her adversary apart.

...or rather, it should have twisted her.

_'...no...'_

But the reaper in white nullified her power just by swinging the knife in her right hand.

No...not nullified.

Killed.

"Who...are you?" the psychic could only ask, voice trembling as she looked upon the impossible sight of her implacable foe, who returned her gaze with infinitely deep eyes.

"Everything in existence has an imperfection," the other intoned hauntingly, the voice of death somehow as Fujino had always imagined it - utterly serene. "Living things especially, but even air, will, and time. Anything with a beginning has an end - an end my eyes can see. They're special, like yours."

A terrible smile graced the lips of that beautiful grim reaper, whose ominous black hair, ominous white skin, and ominous, bottomless, empty eyes that could see death itself brought the psychic to a panic.

"You..."

"That's why..." the figure of death continued. "If it exists, I could even kill God."

The reaper breaks into a run, closing the distance in a handful of steps and slamming the psychic to the ground with a power her thin frame belied, straddling her.

"Are you..." Fujino swallowed, trembling at facing an inevitable end so close. "Are you... going to kill me?"

But the other did not answer.

"Why? Why are you going to kill me?" the psychic asked desperately, every part of her screaming that she did not want to die. That she wanted to live. "I only killed because my wound was hurting."

The reaper laughed - an empty, hollow sound that held no trace of mirth.

"That's a lie," the other said at last, looking down at her defeated foe. "If you were, then why did you laugh? That time before, and even now. Why do you seem so happy?"

Fujino hesitated for a moment, placing her hand over her mouth to trace the contours.

Her lips...they were curved upwards...bent.

She could not feel her expression, so she did not know it at the time, but she had been smiling.

"In the end, you were enjoying it," the voice of the grim reaper rang out. "You liked hurting others. That's why that pain would never go away."

_"...because if it did, you would have no reason to kill" _goes unsaid.

"No...that...that..." the psychic murmured, shaking her head, trying to deny it. It couldn't be true. She was different from the one who hunted her. She had to be...

"I already told you, we are alike," the other replied, as the knife slammed down, and everything _distorted._

_BOOM!_

A roar like the crash of thunder was heard, as metal twisted, tore apart with shrieks and screams like those of banshees escaping from the underworld. The ground gave way, the ceiling caved in - sheets of rain sliced through yawning gaps in the construction, as if the storm outside had finally battered its way inside.

And like a doll with strings cut, Fujino Asagami just lay there, her legs unmoving, her mind empty, her breaths slowing, with the only thing left the unbearable agony within.

_'I'm going to die...I'm going to...'_

A choked, strangled cough, producing blood.

Blood was all she saw, staining the world a crimson hue, as every part of her seemed to burn away, melting in the rain.

"No...I do not... want to die."

A pitiful croak. And yet that was her true desire, the first true wish she'd had: she did not want to die. She did not want to disappear.

For she'd only just begun to live...

On the edge of emptiness, she realized it at last.

_'... I want to live more. I want to talk more. I want to love...more...'_

A tear escaped as her body shuddered, the blood roiling up her throat a sign of the impending end, as even the crimson-stained world faded away. Only the pain remained, and even that was quickly fading...

This...this suffering was what she had enjoyed inflicting upon others, not truly understanding what it meant. But now...now she understood the weight of the sins she bore, the meaning of the blood she spilled.

"...It hurts. It really hurts... It hurts so much... I might cry... Mother, can I cry?" she whispered, knowing no one will hear her, knowing that in the end, she would die alone, with no one to mark her passing.

"Are you in pain?" a voice asked. It was gentle, like a calming breeze, but in fading thoughts, it seemed... familiar. "You should have said so, if you were hurting."

Nothing more was said, as a knife pierced her chest, and her remaining sense of pain, like everything else, vanished into utter darkness.

Nothing more remained, save endless winter and old night.

* * *

After an uncertain amount of time caught in the embrace of the infinite void of dreams, consciousness stirred, and as if awakening from a long and fevered sleep, unseeing eyes the color of blood opened upon a strange new world, where, just as on that fateful night eight months ago, it was raining.

Only this time, there was no vision of death before her, only the loamy scent of rain upon dry earth wafting upon the evening air, mingling with the smell of aged oak and pine as she lay in a bed that was not her own - or at least, not the one she was used to.

_'I have not dreamed of that scene for a long time. Why do I see it now, I wonder? Is it because of that void I passed through, which reminded me of..._Ryougi Shiki?'

Even now, she was not particularly comfortable with the thought of her...savior (and killer), the one whose eyes, whose very existence seemed empty, defined only in opposition to another. Thus, she focused on her surroundings, and what she remembered of the day before.

_'...certainly different from those of Reien Girls Academy...it seems that the odd summoning after I left Ahnenerbe was not simply a dream after all. Curious.'_

Well, she hadn't thought herself so imaginative as to create a world from scratch, as despite her attempts to expand her views on the world since the accident, her long period of sensory-deprivation left her lacking the subtle nuances of imagination. Even her essays lacked...expressiveness, so she doubted that could have dreamed up this odd amalgam of medieval and contemporary mores, where magecraft was openly practiced (and endorsed by the Church as a gift from God to the nobility, setting them above common men) and phantasmal beasts were bound in servitude to humans with distinctly modern attire.

_'For now, the assumption of others that I am a battle-nun of the Church of this world seems to be working in my favor, granting a certain amount of deference and respect offsets the discomfort my blindness induces. However...'_

She needed more information, and so, sensing no one else around, the psychic closed her eyes, tapping into her abilities as a clairvoyant to reacclimatize herself with her surroundings. After all, while she was quite capable of functioning with senses other than sight and had already created a mental map of the space around her, there were certain advantages in information gathering that her abilities conferred...

As expected, she was in a room in the servant quarters, laying on a bed in a rather spartan apartment much like the ones occupied by the maids and cooks who kept the Academy in good working order. Which really was what she was used to, given that the dorms at Reien Academy had been much less opulent than the student rooms in the Tristain Academy of Magic.

For although Reien had also been a school for the wealthy, there was an austere quality to it, as students learned to live within certain limits and boundaries, apart from the rest of the world.

Fujino's lips curved into a wry semblance of a smile as she remembered how her friend Azaka had muttered about the school having something like a natural bounded field by virtue of its isolation from the world. The fire mage of her acquaintance had never held back about her true feelings, as she wasn't someone to pretend to be something she wasn't - much unlike her.

After all, until that night in the rain, the psychic had not felt anything at all. It was as if she had been an actress on the grand stage of the world, playing the part of a normal human being to disguise her inability to feel. Watching what other people did, how they expressed themselves, how they responded to stimuli, what they expected in certain situations - these were second nature to her now.

And so, after rising from bed and padding over to a chair at a round table facing the door, she stretched out her senses, reaching through the walls of the servant quarters, through the grey haze of rain towards the main castle to see what information she might gather, as the _pitter-patter_ of plummeting droplets of moisture against grass and stone played an overture of muted dissonance.

* * *

Even during the period of time leading up to exams or when major projects were assigned, the library of the Tristain Academy of Magic was a lonely place at night, so it was all the more so at the start of a term, when none had cause to visit it.

None, that was, save Professor Jean Colbert, also called the "Flame Snake", a lonely, broken middle-aged man who had spent the last twenty years of his life as a teacher at the Academy, trying to atone for sins he would never fully be forgiven for, even if he worked his entire life to make amends.

In his past life, before turning to academia, he had led the innocuously named "Magical Research Experimental Group," which was in reality a black operations team of magically talented (but not influential) nobles charged with protecting the kingdom by any means necessary. Unlike the army or the Palace Nobles, his job had not been to prevent incidents, but to limit the damage they caused, arriving on the site of a great disaster and exterminating all present - guilty and innocent alike - in order to protect those unrelated to the incident.

Not bounded by moral values such as good and evil, he had thought himself a protector of the balance, one who did what was necessary to preserve the realm, feeling nothing as he ended lives with the ease that others ended sentences.

...until the day he discovered the truth.

The truth that his unit had simply been pawns in the schemes of foreign powers and the corrupt nobility, used to commit murder after murder, atrocity upon atrocity so that his employers would not have to get their hands dirty.

And so he'd deserted his post, but not using the skills he'd learned through blood and sacrifice to destroy all records of who he had been before. On that day, he swore an oath not to use Fire for destruction ever again, becoming a teacher that he might protect the youth of Tristain from going down that dark road, dissuade those foolish enough to follow in his footsteps, any who might unwittingly become war criminals, guilty of things that most could not even begin to imagine.

...which was why the fact that Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière had summoned an agent of the Church as her familiar - a battlemaiden from the Holy Empire of Romalia itself, it seemed - had him so on edge (and why he'd been relieved when he heard how the nun had requested a change from the standard living arrangements).

For the members of the Church, both as the polity called the Holy Empire of Romalia and as an ecclesiastical entity, were generally not as concerned with the salvation of humanity as with maintaining their temporal power and ruthlessly eliminating any rivals to their influence. And while it was true that they kept the old histories, ran orphanages, acted as arbiters in international disputes and such - Colbert knew that they had ulterior motives behind their "generous" acts.

Keeping the histories meant they could teach whatever lies (or conceal whatever truths) they pleased, running orphanages meant that they always had a loyal pool of talent to draw from for their agents (especially when one high-noble or another was guilty of an indiscretion and needed an illegitimate child taken off their hands), and acting as arbiters meant that the Kings and Emperors of Halkeginia saw the Church as the ultimate source of their authority.

_'Although they've never been quite as _direct_ about their intentions as now, when a Cardinal has been installed as Lord Regent of Tristain, and a former prelate leads the rebellion in Albion...' _the fire mage thought to himself, rather unsettled by this turn of events.

Taken into conjunction with the summoning of a _Church Knight _by the youngest daughter of Tristain's most powerful noble family - the only ones directly linked to the royal family by ties of blood and marriage - Colbert suspected that some grand machination by the Pope was afoot.

Of course, as a bumbling professor who spent more time in his laboratory than he did talking to his colleagues, he no longer had access to the intelligence network he was once a part of, but he knew enough from his days as a black operative to be aware of the long reach the Church had.

_'And of the fact that the knights of the Church were rumored to have techniques and abilities kept secret from those not of their sacred orders...such as concealing one's status as a mage,' _the balding man mused with a frown, recalling how "Sister Fujino" had either had her magic sealed - or simply didn't register on his 'Detect Magic' scan. Thinking back recalling that part of the purpose of the "Magical Research Experimental Group" was to develop new, more deadly tricks to add to the Tristanian arsenal of spells. _'Advanced techniques utilizing one's mastery of an element to create effective force multipliers...'_

His specialized "Flame Bomb" transmutation was one of these, a technique that utilized his hidden abilities with alchemy to transmute water into aerosolized droplets of oil, with applications ranging from anti-personnel/anti-army (as a fast-burning fuel-air mix could devour all the oxygen in an area, causing all within to suffocate instantly), to anti-fortress (rendering dampness no obstacle for the destruction of a building...or a village). It had been quite useful for spreading panic through the ranks of enemy forces as he, the Flame Snake, annihilated all those who stood in his way under cover of darkness (as humidity was higher at night anyway).

...but those days were far behind him now, and he had no wish to be a pawn of anyone ever again.

And so Jean Colbert had secluded himself in the library of the Academy, one of the greatest collections of knowledge on the Continent (second only to Romalia's archives), searching its thirty-meter high shelves for any information he could find concerning Church Knights, records of human familiars being summoned (apocryphal or otherwise), or the odd runes that had appeared on "Sister Fujino's" left hand.

_'As the Church provided us with the circle and incantation for the holy rite of summoning, they may be able to influence it in their favor...and I need to know if that was done in this case...' _

...for Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière , as someone who longed to be successful, who would do almost anything for a chance to gain recognition, would be a perfect target of manipulation, if that was truly the Church's aim.

Already, he had exhausted the tomes of the ordinary bookshelves to which students had free access, and was now in the restricted section called "Fenrir's Library", full of the secrets of the past that only a select few had access to.

_'I will find the truth. For the sake of peace...I must.'_

* * *

In the clear night sky above the storm clouds, a dragon soared, unseen by any on the ground, its translucent blue scales glinted in the light of the twin moons of Halkeginia as it bore a rider upon its back - a powerful mage with the build of a child, whose short, blue hair fluttered in the wind as she calmly read a book, seemingly uncaring of the world.

Were one able to see the dragon-rider, one would be surprised, as one would be unable to discern any emotion from her, as her delicate features betrayed nothing of what lay within her heart, save a fleeting tinge of melancholy and coldness, like that of the winter wind.

"Sylphid," the girl murmured after a fashion, blankly staring at the face of the beast she rode, which, noticing it had its master's attention, snorted pleasantly.

"Hm, what's that, big sister?" came the reply in lovely human speech, as the curious dragon tilted her head in curiosity, seeming larger than ever when she spread her wings, the rhythmic beating keeping them aloft.

Normally, dragons did not talk, for though they were superior mythical beasts in a class of their own, their intelligence did not grant them that ability.

They were powerful creatures of magic, with alignments to one of the four great elements, but were widely known to be mindless - no more intelligent than a horse or a dog. Such was the nature of the elemental drakes remaining in Halkeginia to this day.

"Your name," the girl said quietly. "Sylphid."

"Ah, a name! A superb name!" the dragon exclaimed, as it did a barrel roll in excitement, distracting the mage from her reading and forcing her to hold on tight to avoid falling to her death. "Sylphid! A human name for Irukukuu!"

"Not a human name," the girl named Tabitha corrected, hair only mildly ruffled as the dragon righted itself. "Ancient wind faery."

"An ancient fairy! Is that so?" the dragon asked, eyes widening as its body shook with joy, violently shaking the frail dragon-rider, though Tabitha wasn't concerned, as her sense of balance was excellent. "'Irukukuu" is a name for dragons. It means a gentle breeze! But Sylphid can be a second name for when I'm together with big sister!"

A particularly apt name at that, as 'Sylphid' was not simply an elemental drake, but an ancient wind dragon - one of the legendary rhyme dragons that had once lived in deserted mountains and the depths of the forests where human eyes had not yet reached, but were now said to be extinct.

"Around other people..." the diminutive mage said after a few moments.

"Yes, big sister?"

"Do not speak," came the icy words of command, an absolute order that brooked no disobedience.

"...but why...?"

...of course, that didn't mean the dragon couldn't whine about it. While rhyme dragons were extremely intelligent and could understand human speech, they required many years to grow to adulthood. This particular one was roughly 200 years old, to go by the annual growth rings of her scales, but her mentality was only equivalent to that of a human of about 10 years of age.

Still, one could not approach such a beast carelessly, even if it was a child.

For even in the childhood of a rhyme dragon, its species boasted intelligence superior to that of a human being, both in terms of language abilities, in manipulation of the ancient "Magic of the Firstborn", and in spatial and kinesthetic awareness, besides also being a strong mythical beast which could fly at nearly the speed of sound while launching powerful breath attacks.

Thus, "Troublesome," was the answer, delivered in a flat monotone.

And it would certainly be so if other people were to find out that Sylphid was a rhyme dragon, given that her species was said to be extinct. Knowing the pragmatism of mages, Tabitha worried that the Tristain Academy of Magic or the Gallian Royal Family would wish to take the dragon away to conduct research or experiments on her - which would at the least be highly inconvenient.

"...but that's so boring! It's boring unless I can speak!" the dragon protested, not wanting to have to hide its ability.

With a detached expression and a sense of finality, the blunette looked out into the distance.

"Bear with it," the ice mage said in a near whisper, as Sylphid became silent.

Against the utter impassivity of her tiny master, the dragon knew she could not win, for that was the constant expression on her summoner's face. A blank mask - when moody, when normal, when eating, when angry, when thinking - her expression was unreadable.

"...you win, big sister," the rhyme dragon replied dejectedly, falling silent. For several long minutes there was no sound to be heard save the flapping of her great, leathery wings, and the turning of a page. And then... "Oh...yes! When big sister summoned me, there was that girl with pink hair! She summoned a human woman. It was funny, but her eyes... " Once again the dragon trailed off, seeming to swallow. "...they were scary..."

"Yes."

Unseeing eyes and a regal aura, with an impassive gaze that surpassed even that of the chevalier who held the Seventh seat of the Knights of the North Parterre, the duchess who had been stripped of her birthright and the her royal family name, wearing the moniker of a doll.

Such was the nature of the one the Vallière had summoned, a being that deeply unsettled Sylphid for one reason or another.

"Big sister..." she asked hesitantly. "Who was the pink-haired girl, to summon someone so scary?"

"Someone curious."

* * *

Footsteps echoed through the halls of the Academy as a restless Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst wandered, her salamander at her side as they walked, ruminating on the events of the day.

As to why she was not outside, well, Kirche had never been fond of the rain. Not that this was a surprise to most who knew her, given that she was a triangle-class _fire_ mage whose runic name was "Ardent", and was thus at a severe disadvantage in such conditions. Granted, she didn't expect to be attacked at the Academy, since she was careful not to put her life on the line for trivial matters, and her reputation as a "barbaric Germanian" extended to matters of war as well as "love" - not that she'd ever truly been in love.

The dark-skinned redhead was indeed someone whose passions were simple and uncomplicated, going after what she wanted and doing as she pleased without a care for the thoughts of others - but that was precisely why she avoided falling in love. Feelings of love, after all, were simply a temporary lapse in judgment, almost a form of madness or mental illness that clouded one's ability to perceive and deal with the world around them. Attraction and physical desire was one thing, and the Germanian did enjoy drowning in lust when she felt the need, but anything more than that?

For all that she was "Ardent", she was not about to lose control of herself and form unwanted attachments that could end up leading to irrational thoughts and illogical actions, which in turn led to needless worries, jealousy, insecurity, and needlessly risking one's life over trivial affairs.

Case in point: Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency and "Katie", the girls who had gotten into an altercation that morning over _Guiche_ of all people. The water mage Montmorency had even attacked a battlemaiden of the Church in the process, and had Kirche not intervened...

_'...I don't even want to know what would have happened. Especially as this one has admitted to having fought against what I can only think was an elf, _and _served as_ _the direct charge of a Mother Superior, the head of an Order, even after her blindness. I wonder now if those first guesses about Sister Fujino once being a prioress, second only to the Mother Superior, were correct after all...'_

But if so, what did it mean that the Zero had summoned her, and what's more, was frightened out of her mind at the mere sight of the familiar?

It was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Still, perhaps there was a key to this - the fact that while Sister Fujino _was _blind (something that was most unsettling to most, given Halkeginian attitudes towards the disabled), her disability did not define the essence of her being, or mean that her other talents were meaningless.

_'... given that familiars are supposed to reflect their masters...'_

She wondered if that meant that Louise herself had a great deal of hidden potential in one of the elements, given that she would have to in order to summon someone of such.

_'But what? She can't use fire, water, wind, or earth, so clearly she is...wait...'_

The redhead froze in place, her footsteps stilling before one of the windows to the outside as an odd thought crossed her mind, remembering that in the holy texts of which they learned, there were five elements, not four - even if the last - the Holy Power of Void possessed by the Founder himself, had long disappeared from history, existing only in the records of...

_'...the Church.'_

For Louise to successfully summon and _bind _to her service a woman who had fought against the elves as a high-ranking member of the Church, one whose service should be sworn only to God and the Prophet through who His Will was known...did that mean...?

...that was something even a lover of taboos did not yet dare to think.

"Pyaaauuooau?" the great, dark-red lizard that had been keeping pace with her croaked, tilting its head inquisitively as it looked at its master. Roughly translated, it meant something like "is something the matter?"

"You know, Flame...have you ever thought about how insignificant our existence in this world is?" the redhead asked quietly, looking upon the curtain of grey that enveloped everything outside.

"Uowaru?"

"We who are wise, who reign over other creations of the Lord, we who are more outstanding than demi-humans and mythical beasts - no offense meant to you of course," Kirche said, adding the hasty qualification as an afterthought so that her salamander would not become offended. "There are so many of us, so complacent and accepting of our place that we don't move forward, that we never look at the world around us."

An impatient huff, as if the reptilian beast was telling her to get to the point.

"Oh, you're not the most patient one either, huh? Even for a reptile, which should be good at sitting around and doing nothing," the Germanian noted wryly, earning a somewhat irate look from the flame salamander. "I used to think that I was different, but it turned out I was like everyone else in wanting to be a better mage. There was nothing special about me - about Germanians - about anyone at all. So what if we could use magic? So could people all over the continent, mages all looking down on one another, competing with one another, doing the same things and thinking they were special."

A quiet, mirthless chuckle fell from her lips.

"When I realized that, it felt like the world around me began to fade into a dull gray void," the flame mage related, thinking about the memories of the past. "Everything became less enjoyable, and I wondered if there was meaning in the everyday things. I looked for something to fill me, something beyond the ordinary in every sense of the word, but there was nothing, no one, really."

She'd been to Academies all over the continent, seen the things they did, experienced the lives of the students there, and for what? To experience more of the same, to see each place more or less like another, subtle variations on a common theme?

"Nyuo..."

Her lips curved up ever so slightly as she contemplated the day and the oddities of it, which was enough to lift her melancholy by just a hint.

"It's a mystery, right?" she asked to no one in particular, before nodding to herself and looking away from the drab grey of the world outside. With that, she resumed her walk, forcing her familiar to scramble to follow. "...right."

* * *

She sat motionless at her desk, seemingly a pink-haired doll posed to look out into the gloom of evening, as a curtain of rain blanketed the landscape, obscuring everything. The grounds, the moon, the stars - all were hidden, as if they'd never existed in the first place.

Just like her hopes.

Over the last sixteen years of her life, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière had worked harder than anyone else, pushing herself past any reasonable limits, exhausting herself in an attempt to break through her handicap and finally cast a spell successfully. She'd dedicated herself to her studies, shunning the company of others as she read every book she could find on magical theory, experimented with every concentration exercise and every odd technique she'd heard of, desperately trying to carve out a place for herself in this world of magic.

...and for what?

So she could summon a blind woman and prove to everyone that she was a failure? It didn't matter that the woman might have once been a battlemaiden - for what use was someone who was so..._crippled? _

As everyone knew, a familiar was supposed to allow its master to see through its eyes, retrieve items that the master might desire, or to protect its master from any and all enemies, but she couldn't expect to have any of these from the woman she'd summoned.

Most obviously, one could not see through the eyes of a familiar if the familiar itself _could not see,_ but worse than that, such a being would be incapable of finding items or protecting her.

The very notion of a crippled familiar was laughable, and had it happened to anyone else, Louise would have joined in laughing at the person's misfortune.

But it had happened to her, and in its way was far worse than having summoned nothing at all.

If she hadn't managed to call forth a familiar, she would have been expelled from the Academy and presumably disowned by her parents, forced to live as a commoner - a thought she couldn't begin to fathom.

She'd rather die than be stripped of her noble status, for was it not better to beg in heaven than reign in hell, than to be cast into the teeming masses of the sea of humanity?

In answer to her prayers, something had appeared in her summoning circle, granting her hope - an emotion which she hated with a vengeance, for it always betrayed her, yet could not help but cling to, prolonging her suffering.

Every noble was required to summon a familiar, to prove their ability by binding their first vassal to their side - every noble except for members of the royal families, those who could trace their line of descent to the Founder himself, and who by proof of blood were already set apart from their peers. _They _did not need to summon, and indeed, for them to call a familiar was frowned upon, as their first loyalty should be to their kingdoms and their subjects, not a beast of burden.

For the first time, she wondered if it was the bit of royal blood in her - and her familiarity with the Princess Henrietta - had poisoned her ability in magecraft, as God frowned on those who became too close to the descendants of the Prophet, and threatened to impinge upon the roles of the royals.

Was it the hint of royal blood she carried that had twisted her family - that had made her older sisters sick in the body (Cattleya ) or the mind (Eleanor ) - while poisoning her soul? Was this her punishment for being born?

Since she had managed to call forth a familiar, she thought that maybe the Lord had at last granted her mercy, and would at least allow her access to the spells everyone else could use, even if she could not use any of the elemental magics. Spells like levitation, silence, summoning - the basics of the basics that any mage had to learn to call him or herself worthy of the name.

But she should have remembered that God was not merciful, that He was a wrathful and jealous God who only blessed proper nobles, that he had set the strong over the weak, without exception.

In forgetting that...she'd failed once again, with an attempted spell of silence resulting in an explosion.

The time of danger was not yet over, and she might still be cast out into the world of commoners, to live among them without magic, without the blessings she so longed for, which everyone else seemed to enjoy without so much as a thought.

As silent tears traced their way down her cheeks, the storm without seeming to mirror the storm within, the doll-like Vallière sat immobile, her eyes unfocused, only one thought in her mind.

_'I'd rather die...'_

* * *

At the sound of a knock on the door, Fujino Asagami returned to herself, disabling her far-seeing abilities as the runes on her left hand ceased to shine. She had seen much in her remote viewing of the campus, observing those in their rooms, walking around, or such - although unlike in the scrying of mages, she was limited to being to _see_ (clairvoyance), without sound (clairaudience) or much in the way of sensation (clairsentience).

...which was why the fact that she'd seemed to step into the mind and body of the girl who had summoned her, as she approached the room where her summoner dwelt, was so jarring.

_'Curious. I was able to see through another's eyes, hearing thoughts and feeling sensations, though that is not the nature of my remote sensing ability. Perhaps it is related to the new channel that became available...'_

As a psychic, she was aware of the three "abnormal" channels she possessed - two given over to her telekinetic powers (as opposed to the fraction of one that all others who had such an ability could claim), and one entirely dedicated to her clairvoyance, so to find a _new_ channel open to her after waking up in this world for the first time was...odd.

A rather malleable channel, at that, as it seemed to add its power to whatever ability she was already using (be it telekinesis or clairvoyance so far), though when not being used for some other purpose, it seemed the channel served as a link to the summoner, allowing her to use the other's senses.

Rather the opposite of what a familiar bond was supposed to allow, from what Azaka had told her.

_'Though perhaps it is related to the matter of the runes...'_

She would have to test out whether it applied to enhancing other senses or physical abilities, as she supposed that such a thing would be expected of a "battlemaiden", even one who might have lost some of her prowess due to being unable to see.

For now though, a different matter awaited, as the tentative knocking continued.

"Ah...Sister Fujino, are you awake?" the hesitant voice of the maid named Siesta called softly, sounding muffled through the solid oak door and the white noise of the rain.

"I am," the psychic acknowledged, pitching her voice just high enough to hear. "Come in Siesta."

"Then excuse my intrusion," came the nervous reply, as Siesta came through the door in a heavy cloak, carrying a tray with a bowl full of hot stew, a small loaf of bread, and a pot of tea, which she placed in front of the "nun." "Um, I've brought you something to eat. It's only the staff meal, I'm afraid - made from the leftovers of the nobles' meals. But if you don't mind..."

"I do not," Fujino Asagami intoned, cutting off further protest as she smelled the fragrant aromas of beef-stock, rosemary and a hint of basil wafting out into the enclosed room. "I would presume it is a stew of some sort?"

"Ah..." Siesta said, blushing with embarrassment as she remembered that the other could not see. "Yes, there is stew as well as bread. The stew is in a bowl just in front of you, while the bread is to the left of it, and a teapot and cup to the right."

"...if it is not too much trouble, could you pour the tea for me?" the blind woman inquired, her blood-red eyes seeming to look right at the maid, though Siesta knew that wasn't possible. "You may pour yourself a cup as well."

"But that would be..."

"I insist," the psychic said quietly, gesturing to the chair facing her. "And sit, if you will."

"...but tea is a delicacy imported from Elven lands, and to sit in the presence of a noble would be..."

"You _were _assigned to be my assistant, correct?" Fujino asked mildly, her hands moving on the tray as she located a spoon for the stew and the bread.

A timid nod from the raven-haired maid, who, realizing her mistake, said: "Yes...I was, Sister Fujino."

"Then please, do as I ask."

Siesta swallowed, knowing that any noble who saw this would likely think she was being presumptuous and overstepping the bounds of her position, but did as she was asked, unable to refuse a direct request of the woman who was now her superior.

She poured the tea and then sat, watching how the Church woman ate quietly, not seeming to be impaired at such simple tasks. Which was a puzzle to her, as she didn't know how one would keep track of one's body without sight...

Of course, the Asagami heiress felt the pressure of such stares all too well, even without being able to see. One could call it an instinct in how one recognized one was being watched...

"If you are curious, then close your eyes and touch your finger to your nose," the psychic instructed the maid, who started at the sound of the other's voice, but carried out the strange request, frowning as she was able to do it. "It is simply a matter of being aware of your body and where it is in relation to the world around you."

"I...see..." the maid noted, troubled by something on her mind.

"...you have a question?"

"Ah...well..." the maid fumbled with words, trying to voice her thought in an inoffensive way.

"...Ask."

"...Pardon my impropriety, but...what is it like to be blind?" she blurted out. "And...ah...were you always...?"

For Siesta had never seen a blind person before, much less one who apparently still managed to have a certain dignity and sense of nobility she didn't find even in those who were sighted. Magic, if one had the resources, was able to cure most ailments, after all, and who it could not were not normally thought of as eligible for positions in society.

"That was two questions, not one," Fujino remarked with a touch of reproof, causing Siesta to cringe for a moment, only to relax when the demon hunter continued. "But nevertheless, I will answer, if not in the order you desire. I was not born blind, so I remember what it is to see, to perceive the world in its color...

"...but you can't read, can you?" the maid asked suddenly. "Or..."

"Now that I am sightless, I depend on my other senses, perceiving the world through textures, sounds, smells," the psychic reflected, a touch of a frown touching her lips. "One comes to realize how potent the others are...the things that having sight blinds us to. But yes, reading is one pleasure I have not been able to enjoy since I lost my sight..."

...or in this world, it seemed, since the script used was so very different from what she was used to, even if it bore some resemblance to the runes her friend once drew. It appeared some kind of translation spell was at work to help her communicate verbally, but finding information would be difficult, as this world made no accommodations for the blind. On the other hand, given what others assumed her to be, her blindness did make for a useful excuse in why she might not be familiar with a text.

"I...I'm sorry for-"

"Rather than apologize, simply answer a question."

"...yes?"

"Since you asked, can _you_ read?" the psychic questioned, her voice growing intent as she seemed to focus on the maid.

"I can, Sister Fujino," the maid answered, a sudden flash of insight filling her mind. "Um...did you want me to read to you?"

"That would be...appreciated," the demon hunter responded gravely.

"Is there anything in particular you would like to have read?" Siesta asked timidly, knowing that the "nun" would probably not be interested in her collection of raunchy romance novels. "There are many books in the library, but as a member of the staff, I am normally not allowed to..."

"...perhaps if I went with you, then?" Fujino inquired, making a note of how deferential people seemed to be towards her persona as a maiden of the Church.

"Ah, yes, that could work..." the maid said, blinking at the thought of actually being able to visit that treasure trove of books... "But right now it's raining, and..."

"I understand," Fujino intoned, nodding. "For now, as we will be working together, tell me of yourself. And of why it is that your hair is an unusual color..."

"Ah, how did you...?"

"The headmaster commented on it," the demon hunter remarked, her lips curving upwards ever so slightly. "So, if you are willing..."

"...of course."


End file.
